FALMOUTH, Trelawny — The Port Authority of Jamaica has been mandated by Government to temporarily co-ordinate the $7.5-billion cruise shipping pier development here in the wake of the slow rate of final preparations.

“We ended up with a development which involves so many ministries and so many agencies. So, in the interim, we will make the Port Authority the co-ordinating and lead agency to pull all the ends together and implement the programmes,” Transport and Works Minister Mike Henry told a meeting of stakeholders here yesterday.

Royal Caribbean Cruise Line’s (RCCL’s) Navigator of the Seas has been rescheduled to arrive at the historic Falmouth Port on February 17 instead of tomorrow, January 7.

The new date was decided to ensure that both the port and the town were ready to offer the ship’s approximately 4,000 passengers and 1,200-crew a “positive experience”.

Next month’s call by Navigator of the Seas will precede the much-heralded coming of the RCCL’s Oasis of the Seas, Genesis Class on March 22. That vessel is slated to arrive with 7,000 passengers and crew members.

Meanwhile, the over 450 workers, who for two consecutive days stayed off the job at the pier, returned to work yesterday morning. They took industrial action Monday and Tuesday over statutory deductions from their end-of-year bonus payments.

Henry was one of four Government ministers who held a lengthy meeting with various stakeholders, including representatives of the contractors at the shipping pier development to hammer out the issues affecting the project.

Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett, Culture Minister Olivia ‘Babsy’ Grange and Information Minister Daryl Vaz were the other ministers who attended yesterday’s summit.

Bartlett expressed confidence that the pier would be ready to receive the vessels in February and March.

“I am satisfied that the elements that must come together to deliver on the 17th of February are in place. We cannot have a further slippage,” Bartlett said.